


the language of the desperate

by ThanksForListening



Category: NCIS
Genre: But mostly fluff, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Reunions, yes this is a tiva reunion fic sue me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 16:04:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20603546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThanksForListening/pseuds/ThanksForListening
Summary: "Ziva couldn’t open the door.She wanted to open the door. More than anything, she wanted to open the door. Hell, if someone had tried to hold her back from opening that door, she’d have killed them without a second thought.So why, she wondered, was she still standing here, hand hovering right above the handle?"or, Ziva is finally reunited with her family





	the language of the desperate

**Author's Note:**

> if you had told me a year ago that i'd be writing and posting a tiva reunion fic in 2019 i'd have called you crazy yet here we are. also if anything feels out of character its because i havent watched this show in years so i'm relying on 2013 me's unhealthy obsession to get the voices right.

Ziva couldn’t open the door. 

She wanted to open the door. More than anything, she wanted to open the door. Hell, if someone had tried to hold her back from opening that door, she’d have killed them without a second thought. 

So why, she wondered, was she still standing here, hand hovering right above the handle? 

“What’s wrong with me?” She whispered to herself. 

“Nothing wrong.” A voice came from behind her, and she turned to find Gibbs standing against the wall. 

“If that were true, I wouldn’t be here.” She took a step toward him. “Any minute now, McGee is going to call, and when he does, everything I’ve been fighting for is going to be behind that door. I should be standing there with open arms; instead I’m cowering. Hiding.”

“You want to see them?” He asked with indifference, something she didn’t quite know what to do with. 

“More than anything.”

Gibbs shrugged. “Then open the door.”

“I—“ she started, looking back at the exit, the one that would take her to the parking lot where the car would pull in, where an unsuspecting Tony and Tali would be waiting. “I can’t.”

“Can’t, or won’t?”

“What if they hate me for it?” She said softly, eyes still on the door handle. “What if they don’t want me back?”

“We talking about the same DiNozzo?”

“You don’t understand. What I did, leaving them like that. Letting them think I…” she swallowed. “I’ve hurt them, Gibbs. In so many ways, I’ve hurt them.”

“They’ll understand, Ziver.”

“And if they don’t?” 

Her ringtone stopped him from answering. She looked down at her phone, at the caller-ID that lit up the screen. 

In an instant she was outside. Instinctively, she heard the door slamming shut behind her, the sounds of the city around her, but the world seemed to fade as she watched the car pulling up to the curb, the man stepping out of it. 

She froze at the sight of him. Almost everything was exactly as she’d remembered. His hair was unchanged, his face not yet reflecting the years that had passed, but there was something about him, something different that she couldn’t quite place. A look in his eyes, maybe, that made her feel both as if seconds and centuries had passed since they’d last seen each other. 

She saw more than heard her name on his lips, and it was enough to send her running. 

He held her like she’d disappear if he let go. He whispered her name over and over again. _Ziva. Ziva. Ziva_. She closed her eyes and listened, memorizing the sound, memorizing every detail she could store away for later, every feeling rushing through her body. 

She sighed. She’d never felt more at home than when she was in his arms. 

He let go of her, only to move his hands to the sides of her face. He stared at her like he didn’t quite believe what he was seeing. “I knew it,” he said softly, and he was smiling, but it wasn’t the smirk he often wore in their past or the heartbroken smile from that last night at the terminal. Everything about the way he looked at her was brand new. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, the words spilling out of her. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m so sorry I—“

“Hey.” One word and she went silent, unshed tears holding their position, waiting to see if this was the moment, if this was when the axe would drop and everything she feared would come true. Instead, as he had been for over a decade now, he continued to surprise her. “The only thing I care about now, in this moment, is that you’re here. You’re alive. That’s it. Nothing else matters.”

“But—“

“Everything else can wait,” he said. “Please, I just — let it wait, okay?”

She nodded, not trusting herself enough to speak. 

“Besides,” He said with a smile, “I think there’s someone else who might want to see you.”

He stepped to the side, and whatever control she’d had over the tears in her eyes disappeared. She knew, logically, that years had passed since she’d last seen her, but she hadn’t prepared herself to see a fully-grown child standing in front of the car, a curious look on her face. Tali was a toddler the last time she’d held her in her arms, seen her in person, and now…

“It’s real?” Tali said, and something in her chest broke at the words, at the voice that was almost unfamiliar to her. “You’re really alive?”

Ziva nodded, furiously, before slowly walking up to her. “I know this must be confusing, but I promise, I’ll explain everything when—“

She stopped when she noticed tears streaming down her daughter’s face. She bent down, slowly brushed one away. “What’s wrong?” She asked, her own voice shaky and unstable. “I’m sorry, I should have—“

“I remember,” Tali said, and Ziva must have made a face, because she continued. “I remember your voice. I thought I forgot it, but — you used to sing to me. I remember.”

She shattered. Pulling Tali into her arms, Ziva felt the guilt and the grief battling with the overwhelming joy. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard whispers of self-loathing and anger, but it wasn't strong enough to drown out the voice that echoed _home, home. This is home_. 

She knew they needed to go inside, to talk about details and security and next steps, but she couldn’t let go, couldn’t take herself out of this moment. She felt like she was holding Tali for the first time, like everything about her that was broken, that was battered and bruised, none of it mattered anymore, not if she was here, if they were together.

As she held her, she began to whisper: prayers, apologies, every way she could think to say “I love you”, all in a blend, switching from Hebrew to English and back again. She spoke the language of the desperate, soft and quiet and rushed so the words were hardly words at all. Years of unspoken thoughts came pouring out all at once, as if they could no longer rest on the tip of her tongue. 

“Ima,” She said, and Ziva never wanted to stop hearing it. She moved back, looked at her daughter. “Why did you have to hide? Why did it take so long?”

“I—“ she started, taking a deep breath before she continued. “I got into a bit of trouble. I had some really bad people trying to hurt me, and until I stopped them, I couldn’t let them hurt you.”

“Is that why you sent me to Aba?” She asked, and Ziva’s heart soared briefly at the name, the one Tony must have kept using even when he thought she’d never come back. 

She nodded. “If I couldn’t protect you, I knew he could. That you’d be safe there.”

“Then why weren’t we all together from the beginning?” Ziva felt the air around her evaporate, felt time stand still. Not even the wind dared to move when she asked, “Why weren’t we a family?”

Ziva closed her eyes. She knew they’d ask, one of them, if not both, but that didn’t mean she was prepared to answer. “I made a mistake,” she said slowly. “I...before I had you, I was struggling. With myself, mostly. When I found out I was going to have you, I wanted to go back, to find your Aba.” 

“Why didn’t you?”

She didn’t look back, but she could feel Tony’s eyes on her. “Because I didn’t think I deserved to.”

“I don’t get it,” Tali said, a confused look on her face.

“I don’t get it, either,” Ziva tried to smile but it didn’t quite feel right. “But sometimes, our emotions trick us, and it can be hard to know what is true.”

Tali nodded, trying very hard to look serious. “I understand,” she said, and Ziva didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. 

“You do?”

“Yeah.” She said with a smile. “It’s like, when you fall off the swing. At first it really hurts, and you cry, and need a bandaid, but after a while, you realize it didn’t really hurt that bad after all.”

“Yes, it’s exactly like that,” Ziva laughed. “How did you get so smart?”

“Aba says I get it from you,” she said with a smile that meant trouble, one she recognized from the years she spent staring at it from across the bullpen. Ziva finally looked back at Tony. He smiled down at them, tear steaks decorating his cheek. 

“He’s wrong,” She said, keeping her eyes on him. They stayed like that, stealing a moment the way they used to. She stared up at him, and he stared back down at her, and for an instant everything else melted away. 

She’d loved him. She still loved him, but it didn’t dawn on her until he was gone just how much she’d truly loved him before Israel, before she turned him away. She knew she had never been the best at recognizing love, at making her feelings toward others known, so maybe she had a pass for not understanding what was so obvious in hindsight. He was her favorite person, and he’d held that position long before they ever kissed for the last time. Only with the exception of her daughter, of _their daughter,_ he was the person she always thought of. Good day, bad day, worst day, all of them she wanted to spend with him, had always wanted to spend with him, and she wondered how they could have been so blind, how they could have spent so much time dancing around one another when the truth was so blatantly clear. She couldn’t live without him — she might be able to survive, but she’d never truly live, not without him by her side. 

“Hey, kid,” Gibbs’ voice brought the rest of the world back into view, and she was surprised to see he’d walked up behind her. He looked down at Tali, who smiled up at him. “Why don’t we give mom and dad a minute, okay?”

She looked at Ziva, panic in her eyes, and Ziva vowed to herself that she’d never let her daughter feel that fear ever again. “It’s okay,” she said with a smile, “I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

Tali stared at her for another moment, before nodding and taking Gibbs’ outstretched hand. McGee followed them, and she felt guilty for forgetting he was there. She watched them walk away, into the building behind them, waiting until the door shut before standing back up. 

For six and a half seconds, neither of them spoke. Not that she was counting. Not that she was desperately searching for a way to try and put into words the feelings she didn’t quite understand herself. They just stared at each other. Waiting. 

He broke first. “I took her to Paris,” he said, and he spoke with a seemingly nonchalance, but she knew him too well to not notice the pain underlying the words. “After she first showed up in D.C, when I found out you were dead and we had a child I never knew about. We went to Paris.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I never should have kept her from you. It was inexcusable and unforgivable.”

“I almost didn’t believe it was real,” he said, staring at her but not quite making eye contact. “Hiding something like that felt out of character, even for you.”

“I spent a lot of that time after I sent you away acting unlike myself.” She let the gates open, let the words flow freely. “I thought that being alone would help, would make me feel like I finally understood who I was, who I could be, but all I felt was lonely. And with no one else there, I had nothing to drown out the voice in my head, the one that said you were better off without me. That I’d be ruining your life by causing you all that pain only to come crawling back with a child you never asked for.” 

“Did you think I wouldn’t love her?” The disbelief in his voice made her resolve crumble. 

She shrugged, tried to hold herself together with what little strength she had left. “I knew you would love her; I thought you would hate _me,_” she whispered, voice cracking on the last word. 

He looked at her, _really_ looked at her, and she froze. She felt as if he was looking through her, like he could see every moment of their time away from one another, and it scared her more than she would care to admit that she had no idea what he thought of the person she’d become. 

“I didn’t know how to feel at first,” he finally said. “I mean, I’ve never felt grief and anger so strongly before, and never at the same time, for the same person. And all of a sudden I had this—this kid who was suddenly relying on me, and I—“ he took a breath, and she was surprised to hear it shake slightly. “Every time I looked at her, I thought of you. And all I felt was love. God, I’ve never loved anyone the way I love her. The way I love you.”

She nodded, a few times too many. “I’ve loved you for years,” she said softly, and she wasn’t sure how she still had a voice anymore, but the words kept coming, and for once she didn’t try and stop them. “I wasted so much time not understanding just how deeply I loved you. How deeply I still love you. After you left, not a day went by that I didn’t think about going after you. My dreams always led me back to you, to that night, and every time I asked you to stay. Every time.”

“I wish you had,” He said softly. 

“I wish I had, too.”

The silence greeted them once again, but this time she welcomed it, let it absorb the weight of the words they just sent out into the world. He reached his hand out, and she grabbed it without looking, without thinking. It felt right. Like she’d held his hand for years. Like she was born to reach this moment, like going through hell and back ten times over was all the universe’s twisted way of sending her here. 

“Shall we go after them?” She asked, motioning toward the door. 

“We probably should,” he said, yet he didn’t make a move toward the door, and neither did she. 

“She’s everything I’d hoped she’d be.” Ziva kept her eyes on the door, tried to imagine her daughter standing just behind it. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough for that.”

“Her Hebrew is shit.” He said, with such a casual tone that she couldn’t help but laugh. She stood there, laughing until he started to smile, until he was laughing too, until they were wiping away tears for a new reason, for the best reason. 

“We can fix that,” she said after a minute, a soft smile on their face. They walked toward the building, and she could hear Tali laughing from inside. She looked up at him, at the way he looked at the building with the same anticipation and joy that she did, and with one hand still in his, Ziva opened the door.

**Author's Note:**

> i'll be screaming about this on tumblr for a while so if u wanna join me hit me up @thanks--for--listening. also i thrive on kudos and comments because i'm a sucker for some sweet validation. 
> 
> also yes, i did write ziva forgetting McGee was there because i forgot he was there.


End file.
